Project Managers don't burn out!?

Introduction

You walk around feeling like you could do more, but you haven't achieved it. You think 20 days of inaction have passed. In fact, it's only been 3. You look back and see that you've done the work of 3 people.

You're tired, you're hungry, and you want to sleep more.

Your vision is blurred because you have lost your rhythm. You have been chasing the goal like a predator, you are not yet where you need to be, you have no strength. You are given new tasks, your mind cannot make sense of them.

Your project is probably not going well because you or your team are burned out.

You feel lost. And that's okay.

Just as a lion chases its prey, then retreats, feeds, and rests, you and your team need an empty sprint. Technology work is not an assembly line.

One of the pitfalls of large software projects is the totally stupid idea that engineers should produce like agricultural workers. To achieve this, the industry has invented virtuoso terms like scrum ceremonies, masters, senseis, sigma black belts, epic myths and legends, and ‘agile coaches’.

High-tech solutions require natural intelligence. Engineering is primarily about thinking - intensively and in depth. In the coming years, only the businesses that apply the most innovation and creativity will survive. Mass layoffs and the lack of open positions for IT without experience have proven how inefficiently the IT team is managed.

Pavel Durov created Telegram with 30 people (900 million users). Before that, he created the Russian version of Facebook, but the regime ran it over - I never heard him talk about how he applied ceremonies or a manifesto, only ‘common sense’! In his interview with Carl Tuckerson, he talked about his meeting with the former management of X (Twitter) - how the product only needed 20% of the hired people - the answer was “We know it, but we already hired them”…and Elon Musk knew it. The 80 percent he fired are not to blame.

There is a leadership problem.

Why should you be careful about burnout?

Since 2020, the topic has become a hot topic. People sat at home, stressed every minute by the news, and did exactly what you do when you're scared - you grab hold of yourself and act on something familiar and easy. And the most familiar thing for many people was their job. Instead of the standard 4 to 6 hours of real work in the office, you started eating at your desk, opening your laptop at 8 in the morning and closing it at 12 at night.

Thus, productivity increased and businesses progressed against expectations of Armageddon. The first lockdown was approximately 70 days - exactly the time it takes to install a new habit in your life. The habit we acquired was to work hard, without much rest, simply because we sat down at the computer again and again to drown out the stress.

It became our routine to do more than expected. Our minds couldn't stand listening to bad news for so long. World indices normalized after about 3 months, and after 9 months the labor market was on the rise. People added value to businesses. Businesses started earning more and investing. People boldly took the step to seek a raise. And so on until 2022, when the reverse process began - mass layoffs, interest rates... bills don't come out, a normal correction of excess growth.

For 2 and a half years now, we've been wondering whether the labor market has shrunk, has it developed, and whether it's time to change careers.

You say to yourself "Everyone around me is starting to become IT people, but this probably isn't for me.."

Look, there are 3 types of people

• The ones who make things happen,

• The second ones who watch how things happen

• Still others who wonder what happened

Burnout does not come as a result of hard work and exhaustion. It comes when you have been wanting to do something for a long time, but you don't do it. You think you've given up, because you've been working hard for a long time, the tasks are getting more and more, and you wonder how to find more time for more tasks. Suddenly you burn out - you don't feel like working, you become irritable, you lose focus... the consequences are many. But secretly inside you you have some aspiration that you know you should pursue. You put it off. You think about it every day and don't act. Many things around you constantly and silently remind you of it. You look for quick stimuli and quality distraction, you scroll for 3 hours late at night. In the morning the feeling is the same.

You can do it, there is a way!

Solomon said

You're burned out because you're not doing enough of the important projects you know you need to build. You're doing things you don't feel like doing. You think your security will be compromised if your attention shifts to something outside of what you don't like doing.

Your teams burn out because they're not excited about their work. Every project is hard. We're wired to avoid effort.

Lessons from professional sports

When I played basketball, over the years I felt a unique aspect that quality teams never neglected - the conditioning coach. His job was not only to guide the physical preparation of the players. The key skill was to maintain peak form throughout the season. And the best coaches managed to bring the team to its best shape at the end of the season - the most important moment, the playoffs. Then, when the work of the whole year was meaningful.

Head coaches are special people. I've heard many of them say, "You have to be crazy to be a coach." The level of stress, responsibility, and adrenaline is significant when you lead a team into battle every week.

One of my coaches, Petko Delev, used to say

Understand - the head coach takes on the role of a military general, following his instincts and seeking to experience the same excitement that is part of the life of a combat unit commander.

The most unique moments were when the conditioning coach argued with the senior. He didn't hesitate to interrupt the training in the middle and say "Enough for today!". Good senior coaches listened and executed, even though one's ego was a tall tower.

The basketball season lasts 8 months + 2 months of preparation at the beginning. That is, from August to May. When the methodology of a good conditioning coach was missing, the players burned out and from February the body stops listening to you. You climb the stairs to go home and you are out of breath. Your coordination drops - you think you are throwing the ball to the left, it goes to the right. It was not difficult to overwork yourself. It was difficult to enter the playoffs in the best shape. When we achieved this - we won the medal, we defeated stronger teams than us, we exceeded expectations. In the worst case, we fulfilled the goal set for the team.

On the contrary, when there was no “burnout manager”, we started the season strong, there were high expectations for us, the enthusiasm of the fans grew. And then we collapsed, and we recorded a series of losses. This led to even worse consequences - withdrawal of sponsors, stress, internal quarrels, even dismissals, usually the head coach “carried it away”.

The fitness coach was like a sentry. A bodyguard - literally. He kept our bodies from exhaustion. He was the shadow leader - the biggest enemy of burnout and a factor in success.

In Project Management it is no different. As a Project Manager you are that same guard. You protect the team from the dangerously increasing overload. You determine what and how much will be worked on. And you control the rhythm throughout the season - the time of the project or program.

A good IT person in many cases may be sought after by half the organization to 'bandage another ailment' for someone. It's incomprehensible to me - business leaders like to at any time dictate a change in the scope of the project (project scope). A good Project Lead will stand as a general at the entrance to the schedule. All requests will pass through him. And he will be uncompromising in terms of priorities. He will always feel the pulse, the condition of the team. He will think 3 times before distributing work. He will say 'No' often enough and will have the energy to argue and negotiate as if he were the CEO.

A good Delivery, Technology, or Program Director will stand out when they implement a work system that keeps engineers from losing focus and becoming overwhelmed.

The biggest waste of budget is juggling 1 programmer or team of them - across multiple projects.

How to get out of a state of burnout

Most people chase goals that society has set for us and few people can truly say that they pursue and achieve freedom and the life of their dreams. And the survival instinct works 24/7. If you don't master it, it will negatively affect your focus.

So grab one idea from the following and implement it. Just one is enough to feel the difference.

• Take a break

• Block time in your work week for yourself

• Start doing the hard things

• Make a simple action plan and keep it in a visible place

• Talk to people who have already achieved what you are striving for

How to protect your team from burnout

As a Project Manager, the successful implementation of the idea (which is your most valuable skill, your main goal, and the reason you were hired) is very dependent on the top form of your team from start to finish. Especially in the middle and final part of the work.

If you don't pay attention to the team's fitness and don't make sure the 'players' are in shape, the least problem you'll have is being late with deadlines.

The reasons you burn out are a projection of your complex personality. When looking at team morale and motivation, there are only a few key aspects for a leader to pay attention to.

It's wonderful to have the ability to know your people and communicate with each in their own 'emotional' language. Knowledge of different temperaments and how to influence them is certainly valuable no matter what you do.

However, when you're managing a large engineering project, it's hard to give in to the temptation to be a personal psychologist and get the most out of everyone individually.

The idea is becoming too romantic.

In addition to people, you also have to manage budget, deadlines, quantity of work, quality of work, conflicts, priorities, inertia, momentum, the faltering economy, the rotation of the earth, relative atmospheric pressure, seismic activity, and much more.

You can choose between relying on everyone to be professional and maintain their high level of efficiency, consistency, and discipline. Or being disappointed...

Or to look down on your people as a united army, and show the same basic human understanding that you would show to your closest friend or relative whom you want to take care of.

First of all,

In projects that last a long time, especially longer than expected, there is a tendency for participants to become irritated by things that they would have been able to swallow at lower stress levels. The Project Manager will be responsible for the work done until the end, and is very likely to switch to micromanagement mode in pursuit of the same. This is when people are most comfortable comparing him to a parrot who just goes around and annoys people with the same questions.

There's a very thin line between helping your team burn out by constantly making them nervous, and getting the team through the stress, tension, and panic and succeeding.

There are a few basic things that make people nervous in an organized workplace. I have been nervous many times; I have witnessed people get nervous about others; and I have been known, at one time, to be the person who makes others nervous. To effectively understand the basic things, I will give you examples in the first person; as you read them, think of someone you have worked with and whom you respect:

• You assumed I was an idiot. - if I'm hired to do a job I'm capable of, every time someone treats me like I'm incompetent, or gives me a 10-step procedure, a template, a weekly debrief, a committee, a Jedi High Council to 'help' me do the same job - I'm sure I'll get annoyed. I should be free to determine the best way to do it, and as long as I'm not considered a failure, I should be considered competent.

• You don't believe me
  • If I'm expected to report every hour, every day, every week, to 4 different places for decisions that are within my sphere of authority, and even more so in my sphere of determination and commitment, I'm going to get annoyed. If I have to go for a signature on every decision, what authority do I even have? Why does everything have to be documented, when I'm doing a good job.

• You're wasting my time - If you make me repeat the same tasks, or go too far from the necessary course of action to assuage managerial fears, ridiculously unrealistic and insignificant, - I will get annoyed. This also includes the inconsistent type of communication, in which at every convenient moment you share your brilliantly practical idea, for the evaluation of which I need a kilogram of analysis time.

• You lead me without respect - If I am sent to pick pears in a pine forest even once, given tasks that have no application in reality, or destined to engage in doomed ventures and then be held accountable for them, I will be irritated. Someone needs to look out for me and make sure my efforts are aligned with the organization's business goals. If I ask for assistance, it should be provided to me without being delayed or ignored.

• You make me listen to or read nonsense - Anytime I have to listen to someone or read something someone has written that is not relevant to the work I am doing with my team, I will get annoyed. Just because someone writes an email, invites me to a meeting, or publishes a document, doesn't mean it is worth my time. The more 2nd and 3rd degree things I am asked or forced to do, the less productive and happy I am.

Micromanagement is a natural socio-emotional behavior. It involves a susceptibility to panic.

Secondly,

There is a hidden stumbling block that almost every Project Manager overlooks. Your ability to overcome it directly takes you out of the ‘parrot’ category.

The larger the project, the more unknowns there are in it. Accordingly, the quality of the schedule (plan) decreases.

According to recent research 60% of Project Managers use a hybrid implementation model. Between 65 and 80% of IT projects fail to meet their goals, run behind schedule, or cost much more than originally planned.

A hybrid Project Delivery model is understood as agile + waterfall. A better interpretation is - the more complex the project, the more you will need to alternate between periods of moving according to plan, periods of intensive catch-up, and periods of feedback and reaction.

To stand out, you don't need to complete a big project on time, on budget, and do everything you planned. You just need to do your best.

And in order not to fail completely in all dimensions (budget, time, and quality), you need to show a little basic team sense.

In your project you will have certain milestones, micro goals that lead you to the ultimate big goal. At least 3/10 of these will be very challenging, and your team will have to push themselves to the limit to realize them. That's when it's your responsibility to feel the pulse of the team and slow down the pace.

After any significant effort, your team will be exhausted, and they won't immediately tackle the next task. If you rush them with the next point in the plan, you will encounter mythical, silent resistance, and if you are inexperienced, you will conclude that you are working with incompetent people.

Just as you can burn out, your entire team will have their moments. Give yourself time to recover, skip a sprint, do something different in your weekly routine. It doesn’t have to be team building. If you have a series of regular meetings, break them up, or even better, space them out. Only increase them when you’re back in an intense sprint. It’s amazing to me how much more effective 2 weekly 20-minute meetings can be than 5 1-hour meetings.

In one of my projects, in its most intense phase, it was very helpful to have a half-empty day, usually a Thursday, when we would hang out on the terrace in the office and not work. The conversation revolved entirely around work, but in an atmosphere of complete lack of tension. We did it within a few weeks. In the end, we finished on time and with perfectly written software. It was just that the really good engineers got the peace they needed to show their best without anyone bothering them.

Inertia is achieved by pressing the gas pedal to the floor and releasing the throttle. A good Project Manager is in control of inertia, takeoff and landing, monitoring not only inertia but also a full fuel tank.

The third technique.

Many people on your team will not be in love with their work. Accept that. Some will behave unprofessionally. Some will be difficult to work with. For someone going through a personal drama, finishing their assignment by the end of the week may be the last thing on their mind.

If up to 85% of IT projects fail in quality, goals, budget, or deadline, to be in the remaining 15% you will also have to manage emotional natural intelligence.

There is no better environment for leadership than the context of an assigned project. The idea of formal leadership is not present.

Most people are losers by default. They need to grab onto something successful and are willing to part with authenticity and uniqueness in order to feel at least a little bit out of their own misery. That's exactly why there are sports fans whose lives revolve around the outcome of their favorite team's match in the next round. The most fun for me is listening to the passion with which the same fans comment on the summer transfer window. How a record amount was given for a given player. As if they took out and paid. Now the hopes of winning are even higher - we drink 2 beers, we are calm and confident and go to bed.

Your job is to create an atmosphere of success by constantly communicating the success of the project. Before success is a fact, communicating it means repeating the mission, not forgetting to celebrate the victories, and painting a picture in people's minds of how significant their work is.

Throughout my career, I have been amazed to see pupils dilate when I share and talk about the significance of what a person is working on. In the context of their daily misery, they are simply writing the next task, but as part of a team, they are actually adding value to a significant number of participants in a business chain.

There is no greater challenge for a Project Manager than leading people without formal authority.

John Maxwell defines 5 levels of leadership throughout his bibliography. And the reason why people are a joke at each level:

1. Because you have to (position, here you don't even qualify as a Project Manager)

1. Because they want to (you have permission to lead them because you're a dude)

1. Because of what you have done for the organization (the moments when you have intervened decisively)

1. Because of what you did for them (you inspired them, and you made them feel part of something successful)

1. Because of who you are (your overall integrity, which is achieved with enough time at a high level)

IT projects are difficult and long. The good thing is that you will have enough time to climb from 1st to 5th.

If you don't care about people, the least that will happen is the first burnout to leave the team. The worst that will happen is that your project will fail, and there won't be a sponsor in the world to bring it back to life.

Jesus said

• did not say my programmers listen to me and have a high frequency and speed of completed tasks (Agile - velocity)

Notice that he first said “they hear my voice” and did not say they hear me. Later he had to show them that he knew them so that he could say “they follow me”. He did not stop there and continued with “I give them…” and “never…and no one…” will hinder them, because “I am the way and the truth and the life” - the 5th level.

In total contradiction to modern hustle business logic, Jesus stopped to find 1 lost sheep and left the other 99 of the flock...

Besides God, and an example of everything, Jesus walked the earth as a leader, starting from the lowest level - unknown to anyone, neglected, envied and hated. And the one thing he never stopped doing was taking care of people. Wherever he went - first he healed, then he encouraged, and then he taught and provided. The result is 2000 years of generations of millions of people who listen to his voice, and he knows them and they follow him!

p.s. If you liked or disliked the article, it would be great if you could leave me a comment.

If you are a Project Manager and you are confused in the middle of a large project - the part about micromanagement is inspired by the book "Make Things Happen" by Scott Berkun - I recommend it to you.

If you need career advice, write to me so we can talk or have coffee.